'The Tunnel at the End of the Light,' Andromeda's second season finale, has been given a mixed reception by critics.

Kathie Huddleston at Sci-Fi Weekly thought the episode effectively tied up the Commonwealth story arc. "The episode has plenty of action, a couple of nice guest-starring aliens and some good special effects involving the nearly invisible creatures," she wrote. "The lighter tone seems to suit all the actors, and Sorbo and his cast offer good consistent performances. It took Sorbo a while, but he's finally left Hercules behind and worked his way into the role of Dylan Hunt. Co-stars Ryder and Cobb are particularly fun to watch, with Cobb actually getting a chance to smile once or twice."

However, Huddleston was less than enthusiastic about the cliffhanger. "Making a show less serialized and then tacking on a cliffhanger at the end of the season would seem to defeat the purpose. In fact, the cliffhanger is so unimpressive, viewers will be lucky to remember it at all when Andromeda returns in the fall." In the full review, the episode was awarded a B grade.

Over at the Andromeda Commonwealth, David Blackwell didn't think the episode was as good as 'Its Hour Come Round At Last,' but still a worthy and effective Andromeda instalment.

"The episode has some misdirection, but it is soon taken over by other things like action scenes and suspense," he wrote. "'Tunnel' may not be as great a finale as 'Its Hour Come Round At Last', but it still packs some power and it is a good episode. A lot of budget was put into this episode for the numerous special effect shots populating this episode and the number of extras." In Blackwell's complete analysis, 'Tunnel' was awarded a score of 4 out of 5.

At the other end of the spectrum was Star Trek Hypertext's Jamahl Epsicokhan, who summed up the episode thus: "Lots of stuff blows up ... and I quite simply don't give a damn."

Despairing at Andromeda's declining quality, Epsicokhan awarded 'Tunnel' only 1.5 out of a possible 4 stars. "I'm of the opinion that Andromeda has degenerated into a mindless farce that more often than not requires me to be dumber while watching it. While 'Tunnel' admittedly makes some efforts to tie in with previous episodes to make this somehow Andromeda-relevant, there's absolutely no escaping two things: (1) The plot at hand involving the eeeeevil aliens is so minimal as to be laughable, and (2) the space battles exist only to supply endless, hollow sound and fury, not to provide anything dramatic, remotely interesting, logical, or even fun." Read the full analysis at this page.

Epsicokhan was rather more positive in his reviews of 'The Knight, Death and the Devil,' and 'Immaculate Perception,' which he also posted recently. "The best episode of Andromeda in months," he wrote of 'Knight,' awarding it 3 stars. 'Immaculate Perception' also scored 3 stars. "This is an episode that gets into Tyr's head and tries to see what makes him tick: self-serving, but not merely so," Epsicokhan said. "It's one of the season's better offerings."

The complete reviews are available here and here at Star Trek: Hypertext.